


a dry sky on fire

by Ergelia



Series: your dream is my reality [2]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I spell yoobin as yubin, M/M, Magical Disease, Magical Realism, Multi, Seonghwa has multiple life crises, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, dreamcatcher members are side characters, long-term illness, no need to know dreamcatcher to understand!, seonghwa is a bird, yeosang is cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25010542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ergelia/pseuds/Ergelia
Summary: "Promise me that you'll never love anybody who doesn't love you back."+++++No descendant of the Fenghuang has ever lived long without finding their mate. They are a people made to love and to be loved. The bloodline may have weakened over time, but Seonghwa is still a Fenghuang- of course he’ll fall in love. The only thing he needs to be careful about is to fall in love with someone who can love him back. It’s okay if they don’t love Seonghwa at first; very few refuse the love call of the Feng.Unless, of course, if the person is already in love- or incapable of itSo it's just Seonghwa's luck to fall in love with the one person in the world who is magically, medically incapable of love.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Jeong Yunho/Kim Hongjoong, Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: your dream is my reality [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1435294
Comments: 4
Kudos: 115





	a dry sky on fire

**Author's Note:**

> tw for people disturbed by chronic illness, and mentions of death. enjoy!
> 
> (this will make more sense after reading the first work in this series, but it's not required.)
> 
> theme song: utopia
> 
> ** a lot of the mythology / magical creatures are referenced from mythology i've learned about but it's not entirely true to the source!! i do not own any of the characters or beings :)

“Seonghwa, can you promise me something?”

Jina is lying inside her hospital room when she asks him this. The light shining through the foggy panes of her window is gentle, but the light that leaks through her eyes is not. She blinks once before squeezing them shut, coughing.

Underneath Seonghwa’s fingers, she’s burning as hot as a furnace. Seonghwa’s never been afraid of touching fire, but right now he’s afraid of touching her skin. She looks so very fragile.

A hand closes tight around Seonghwa’s forearm.

“Seonghwa?”

The young boy swallows back his tears and nods seriously. Then he realizes she can’t see him, and clears his throat.

“Of course, sister,” he says. “You know I would promise you anything.”

Jina smiles.

“Good.”

She opens her mouth again to speak, but raspy coughs precede words. Her shoulders shake erratically. Seonghwa tightens his grip around her fingers, afraid to even breathe in case he takes away her air.

When the coughing subsides, Jina falls limply against her pillows and sighs.

“Promise me that you’ll never love anybody who doesn’t love you back,” Jina whispers.

Seonghwa is too young to know what his older cousin means. He doesn’t know what it is like to love and to not be loved back, how it feels to have your blood grow hotter and brighter until light spills from the cracks in your broken body. But he does know that whatever love is, it’s hurting Jina a lot. And he knows that Jina is someone precious to him- the older sister his own could never be, the best friend a seven-year-old can have.

So he promises her, and he holds her hand until her skin splits and cracks, until the doctors have to drag him screaming from the room as Jina’s blood burns her out from the inside.

He doesn’t know what love is, but he does know it’s killed Jina.

Seonghwa hates love.

For fifteen years, Seonghwa keeps his promise. He’s very pretty, and he’s very good at making friends. He’s also very good at not falling in love.

He doesn’t fully understand why Jina died, until his parents sit him down when he’s just in the early months of puberty.

“Seonghwa,” his father says seriously. “Do you know who our ancestors are?”

Seonghwa frowns at that, fingers curling around the straps of his backpack. “Um, the phoenix?”

“Well, close.” Seonghwa’s father holds his hand out to his wife, who takes it gently. At once, their connected hands flare with a magical pulse that spirals out and into bright, golden flames. Seonghwa watches in awe as the illusion (for that’s what it is, right?) dies down and dissipates to reveal the normally unnoticeable matching marks on his parents’ skin glowing a molten scarlet.

“Your father’s family descended from the Fenghuang,” his mother tells him. “Or rather, a group of magic humans who were blessed by them.”

“And your mother’s line is mostly human, with a little bit of valravn mixed in somewhere. Be careful with your heart, never know when they’ll try to get to it.”

Mother snorts at that, rolling her eyes. “Anyways, darling, we wanted to tell you something important about your bloodline.”

“My bloodline?”

“The Fenghuang symbolize a dual bond for a reason,” his father answers. “Love is an extremely important subject for our kind. We’re special in that we… form unnervingly strong bonds with the people we love.”

“Especially if it’s someone you love as a potential life partner.”

Seonghwa winces at hearing his mom say ‘potential life partner’. Ever since that PTA meeting last spring, his parents have been overly careful with their wording with some things. Like Seonghwa’s future wife or husband.

“Seonghwa, listen,” his father says sternly. “You need to be careful with who you fall in love with, okay? Make sure that they love you back. The Fenghuang used to be born with an inborn compass pointing us to our other half, but since no one in the family has had that for generations, you must mind who you choose to love. I was lucky to meet your mother. If a Fenghuang’s match doesn’t love them back-“

“They die,” Mrs. Park finishes.

Seonghwa’s nodding along to their explanation patiently when he hears the last few words.

“They… die?”

At his parents’ grim looks, Seonghwa’s throat dries. “You mean Jina died because her crush didn’t like her back?”

He doesn’t understand why his parents look so uncomfortable. Granted, Seonghwa doesn’t really know how he’s feeling right now, but his face is probably normal. His voice didn’t waver, at least.

“What happened to Jina was a rare misfortune,” his mother says. “She- she caught the blood-boiling flu and luminescent inflammation at the same time, and the treatments, well. They weren’t effective as they should have been. But you’re right, Jina’s body did weaken because of heartbreak.”

Seonghwa stares at his parents dumbly. He knows, now, why Jina had been so persistent on her deathbed. He kind of wants to punch whoever drove Jina to that state. Instead, he picks up the glass of shikhe in front of him.

“Do you understand why we’re telling you this?” Mr. Park asks gently.

Of course he understands. How couldn’t he, when they’re using Jina to warn him away from love?

“You don’t have to worry,” says Seonghwa cheerfully. “I’m never going to fall in love with someone.”

At this, his parents laugh. They think he’s joking, surely. No descendant of the Fenghuang has ever lived long without finding their mate. They are a people made to love and to be loved. The bloodline may have weakened over time, but Seonghwa is still a Fenghuang- of course he’ll fall in love. The only thing he needs to be careful about is to fall in love with someone who can love him back. It’s okay if they don’t love Seonghwa at first; very few refuse the love call of the Feng.

Unless, of course, if the person is already in love- or incapable of it.

Besides, Seonghwa’s parents reason. Seonghwa is wise and sensible. He wouldn’t be as foolish as Jina had been.

Their youngest son is a prodigy at everything else- why wouldn’t it be the same with love?

+++++

Of course, life isn’t that easy.

+++++

Seonghwa lives his life like everyone else does; he goes to school, goes out with his friends, and does everything he needs to do. There are some expectations that are placed on Seonghwa as the youngest Feng in the family- to be the perfect magical prodigy, to be beautiful, to be poised. Most of all, he’s expected to love and be loved- so Seonghwa dates twelve people during his three years of middle school. None of them last more than a couple weeks.

This is partially because Seonghwa never can like them back as much as they like him. It isn’t a matter of sexuality. Seonghwa’s relationships fall anywhere between heterosexual and pansexual, and it’s not like Seonghwa doesn’t like them- they’re great people (for the most part) and oftentimes they break up with him and end up being his close friends. It’s just that whatever Seonghwa feels for them is not enough.

Honestly speaking, he likes the stars more than he likes his dates. Seonghwa might not be able to name the famous restaurants that his most recent ex took him to, but he can mark every point of light inside Cygnus. Star charts and planetary movement are easier to understand than loving someone. Once, Seonghwa tells his friend that. She rolls her eyes and points toward a blank spot in the sky.

“Did you know that my family descended from sky-watchers? Our entire living used to be based on being able to tell fortunes from starlight.”

The girl, Gahyeon, spans out her tarot cards in front of Seonghwa. She nudges his hand.

“Now that’s nearly impossible. Stars aren’t nearly as predictable as people are. As our gifts got weaker, we learned real quick that we couldn’t tell apart greater futures anymore. No more warning about the second Armaggaedon. No more saving the world from terrible horrors, no more choosing prophecy children to die for everyone else. All we do now is try to read people.”

“Do you always have to speak like that?”

Gahyeon shrugs. “What I mean is that I’ve been raised to know when people are ready for something. And that’s how I know that you’re not ready for love. I don’t know why, and I don’t plan to ask, but just so you know- it’s okay to be less than what’s expected of you.”

Grumbling, Seonghwa plucks one of the offered cards. Like all of Gahyeon’s special tarot cards, there’s no writing on it. Only a spindly man in white. The figure’s face is skeletal, etched with harsh, sharp lines.

“Death,” Gahyeon notes. “A great change is in your future.”

The boy frowns and looks back down at the card.

“Are you sure this isn’t the only card you have? I’ve gotten it for the fifth time in a row.”

She shakes a finger at him knowingly. “My cards aren’t the problem. Maybe your fate is just too clear for me to read anything else about you.”

Maybe. Seonghwa doesn’t want to really think about it.

He likes his life as it is now.

Before he makes his way into highschool, Seonghwa tells himself that he’s going to stop accepting so many confessions. It’s not like he’s going to suddenly fall in love with one of his classmates. He decides that he needs to tell his parents that he’s not going to fall into a perfect relationship like them anytime soon. He needs to tell them that he doesn’t want to love anybody.

Still, he hesitates each time he’s about to talk to his mom or his dad. They’re always so happy, so bright, so elegant- Seonghwa can’t help but feel like he’s the odd one out.

In the end, though, he never gets to tell them.

+++++

Six months into freshman year, Seonghwa leaves his parents’ home with his class on a field trip to Washington. When they come back, Seonghwa’s greeted by not his family, but three coffins and a house burnt to ash.

The police shake their heads at the scene. They have no idea who could’ve done this, they say. Does Seonghwa know anyone who would do such a thing?

Seonghwa does not.

He also doesn’t know how a fire killed his family, who were descended from creatures made of fire and light. It’s impossible to kill a phoenix with fire; or well, it should be.

He never thought the Park family had enemies. He could be wrong.

Six more months later, the police are no closer to finding the culprit. Seonghwa’s parents are cremated, like they had written in their will, and his sister is buried ten feet under the ground. His prodigy status becomes heavier. He’s the only one left with the bloodline strong enough to show, and the rest of his extended family (cousins of dead aunts and uncles, people so far from Seonghwa that they’re essentially strangers) never contact him except to send him old books and scrolls about his duty as the bloodline heir. It doesn’t matter that none of the books do him any good- Seonghwa may be a genius with magic, but it doesn’t mean that he’s the ‘true-blooded Feng’ that his great grandfather’s demented second cousin is searching for. He’s no obscure, prophecy child- it’s the 21st century, Seonghwa can’t believe his relatives are still clinging to the old stories.

(Not that the old stories are always wrong. But in Seonghwa’s case, they might as well be.)

Eventually, the highschool boy cuts ties with everybody trying to shove their hopes on him. He never was, and never will be, the rebirth of the original Feng. To fulfill that role he needs his life partner, his Hua, but Seonghwa’s sworn himself to never even look for one. Besides, he’s pretty sure his legendary bloodline faded out generations ago. The only trace of it had been in his parents’ visible soul bond. It’s like how the last of the Ljósálfar are perfectly baseline human, except for the paler tones of coloring. Or how the descendants of the original Nephilim have, instead of wings, the remains of wing sockets.

He strays off the straight and narrow path a little, after that. He doesn’t do anything too bad, but he’s just no longer the perfect golden boy of his stupidly expensive private school. Seonghwa only picks himself back up right before college applications. That barely gives him enough time to get into his sister’s old dream school. It’s the least he can do for her, even if they were never close.

Kwan Qyu University is famous for its magitech curriculum. Naturally, Seonghwa enrolls in it.

Life as a university student is surprisingly different from life in highschool. For one thing, Seonghwa actually makes friends. For another, Seonghwa loses his virginity to his roommate- a pretty, passionate boy named Kim Hongjoong. They both acknowledge that they’re not meant to date. They began as enemies and ended up as friends-with-benefits. That’s not exactly the healthiest relationship.

It doesn’t matter in the end. Hongjoong meets Yunho during his and Seonghwa’s second year. Seonghwa doesn’t really understand what happened between them, but Hongjoong leaves for a club orientation camp and comes back with a giant puppy hanging off his back. The half fairy (Seonghwa knows that Hongjoong doesn’t like people knowing about his parentage, but no matter how normal the boy’s magic is, it doesn’t hide the fact that his eyes shimmer at night, and that there are wings like shards of stained glass hidden underneath his clothes) has somehow found a canine shifter among the dozens of freshmen at the university. The two young men’s swift but steady relationship puts an end to Seonghwa and Hongjoong’s nightly excursions. The older boy’s happy for his friend.

It helps that Yunho is basically a giant, friendly golden retriever. Seonghwa honestly has no idea what breed his animal form is, but when the giant golden-brown pup flops down on Seonghwa and Hongjoong’s couch, he can’t help but laugh and feed him treats.

“You know, I always wondered,” Seonghwa says to Yunho the next time he sees the boy in human form.

“Huh?”

“What do dog biscuits even taste like?”

The boy blinks dumbly. “… I don’t know? I’ve never really thought about it. When I’m a dog everything seems just really bright and warm and, uh, smelly.”

Seonghwa hands human-Yunho a biscuit. The boy bites into it, and immediately gags.

“Definitely not like this,” Yunho tells Seonghwa. “I think I prefer being a dog.”

“But if you’re a dog you can’t date Hongjoong, yeah?”

“Oh, uh,” the younger boy’s face scrunches up as he thinks. “I mean, I love dog biscuits but they can’t compare to hyung- “

He looks close to vibrating as he tries to explain himself. Seonghwa, struggling to keep a straight face, carefully does not tell Yunho that Hongjoong’s standing in the doorway behind him with an amused smirk. When the boy finally notices his boyfriend, he breaks out into a wide grin and forgets all about Seonghwa.

Yeah, he’s definitely a good match for Hongjoong.

+++++

Yunho, as it turns out, is also a very social person. He has a lot of friends- Mingi, who is a werewolf and also very scared of things that go bump in the night; San, whom Yunho used to date for like, a week; and basically half of the entire school. When Hongjoong invites everyone to a party at the arts department Seonghwa goes without expecting much. Okay, maybe he’s expecting to meet some interesting new people and have a fun night, but Seonghwa knows his reputation for being the near untouchable perfectionist. And he likes that reputation.

But then Yunho introduces him to Kang Yeosang, and Seonghwa forgets about all of that.

Yeosang is fucking cute.

Seonghwa notices the boy the moment he enters the room. How could he not? The slender, shy boy in the ridiculously baggy skater boy outfit and red beanie has a face that belongs to someone straight out of a fairytale. At least half of the room swivels to stare after him.

“Hi,” the smaller boy says, when Yunho drags him over to Seonghwa and Hongjoong. “Nice to meet you.”

It’s horribly awkward. Yeosang isn’t much of a social person, Seonghwa can tell from the beginning. But he’s also interesting, in the way his eyes flicker between the air and people’s faces, in the way he stammers and blushes when Seonghwa asks about his tattoo.

On a whim, Seonghwa asks the boy out. To his surprise, the boy agrees-

And doesn’t realize it’s a date.

To be fair, Seonghwa doesn’t mind Yeosang thinking it’s all platonic. It just means that Seonghwa can cuddle up to Yeosang without the boy feeling uncomfortable, and that Yeosang will come to Seonghwa when he’s upset or confused. It just means that they’re not dating, and Seonghwa’s fine with that. It’s not like he’s looking for a partner anyways.

It’s only after Yeosang graduates early, and they move in together that Seonghwa realizes he’s lying to himself.

“Yeosang?”

A while ago, the younger man got himself a job at some run-down flower shop. Seonghwa doesn’t ask why- he has a feeling it has something to do with Yeosang’s condition- but he does feel overprotective of his roommate. He tells himself that Yeosang doesn’t want people to be overprotective over him, and tries not to show it. Sometimes he doesn’t quite manage to.

Like when he enters the flower shop, just as the sun is beginning to set, and sees Yeosang hunched over a bucket, kneeling on the floor.

Seonghwa- he sees red.

He drops the grocery bags he’s holding- doesn’t care that the eggs inside will break, doesn’t care about the terrible bruising the apples will end up with. Instead Seonghwa rushes over to where Yeosang is hurling, face pale and hands shaking.

“Cough it up,” Seonghwa orders, face drawn tight. He knows he’s overreacting; Yeosang must’ve gone through this a ton of times. It’s just that, well. Seonghwa has never seen him like this.

He finds the Galliflower spray bottle cracked open a few feet away, its delicate contents messily splattered across the tiled floor. Sucking in a breath, Seonghwa digs inside his own pockets frantically. His fingers scrabble across his own bottle of Galliflower and he pushes it into Yeosang’s hands.

The younger boy shoves the nozzle into his mouth. For a moment Seonghwa thinks it isn’t working- he’s too busy being paralyzed at the sight of Yeosang’s blood-flecked lips and reddening eyes. But then he realizes that those eyes are watering, and Yeosang’s back isn’t heaving so much anymore.

After a moment Yeosang straightens and he plucks an errant blue rose from under his tongue. He looks, more than anything, mildly inconvenienced. If anybody was to see him now, they wouldn’t believe he could’ve died a moment ago.

“Thanks, hyung,” Yeosang says with a sigh. He looks almost resigned. “Forgot to go to the doctor’s a couple days ago, and then I was stupid and dropped the Galliflower before I could use it.”

“That’s- are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” the younger responds. “It’s not like I’m going to die from this, anyways.”

Seonghwa doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t know how Yeosang- easily one of the kindest people he’s met- is also one of the coldest.

That’s a lie. He does know how, and why. He knows, because he can see the magical parasite wrapped around Yeosang’s neck, the damned thing that even Seonghwa can’t solve with his fancy degree and higher-than-average mana levels. The thing that Seonghwa knows isn’t actually a parasite. Those blue roses, always crawling up the younger’s throat.

It’s a part of Yeosang, and Seonghwa loves Yeosang, so he can’t do anything about it. There’s nothing about him that Seonghwa would change.

So much for never falling in love.

+++++

He doesn’t want to do anything about it. Him and Yeosang, they’re happy the way they are.

+++++

Then he discovers Mingi and Jongho being stupid, Yunho persuades him to do something, and Seonghwa (not that he intended it) ends up in the midst of snow, mayhem, and Yeosang.

He finds himself saying something, admitting something that he’s been sworn against for most of his life.

“I love you,” he tells the other, knowing full well that he’s condemning himself with this. “I know you can’t love me back, Sangie, but would you still be my boyfriend?”

Seonghwa half-expects Yeosang to shake his head and awkwardly laugh it off, as he’s seen Yeosang do in other situations. He knows it’s going to be a strain on his heart, he can feel the bloodline he’s damned so many times tug and whisper at him. But at least rejection now wouldn’t hurt him too much.

Yeosang says yes instead.

“Did you just say yes?”

“Did you want me not to?”

Seonghwa stares at the other man, and Yeosang stares back. There’s this deadpan look that only Yeosang has perfected, a look that manages to be both dead serious and hilariously unimpressed. Nailed down by it, Seonghwa swears a little.

“N-no, of course not.”

They leave Mingi and Jongho to do god-knows-what. He doesn’t really care at this point- Yeosang said yes and he’s going to make the most of it while he can. Inside his ribcage his heart’s whole and healthy (for now) and he doesn’t know how long it’s going to last.

Their first kiss is wet and messy, like snow often is, and Seonghwa snorts a laugh halfway through, but it’s perfect. Afterwards, they end up flicking through Hongjoong’s playlist back at their shared living room. Yeosang falls asleep before Seonghwa can prod him off his shoulder. He lies down against the ridiculously garish sofa cushions Wooyoung got them as a joke, and from that position Seonghwa can see both Yeosang and the night sky at once.

Some say that love is a consequence of circumstance. Seonghwa would say that it is not. To him, love is inevitable. His love is for the stars, and for the boy in his house with roses around his neck.

+++++

Not much changes after they start dating. They hold hands, they kiss. They do cute boyfriend things, like Yunho and Hongjoong always do, but they also have the old couple arguments that Wooyoung and San often fall into. It’s easy to relax into a routine, which Seonghwa does. He works diligently at his magitech firm, Yeosang comes home first with a bunch of flower-shop rejects hanging out of his arms, and Seonghwa ends up being the one struggling to keep the dozen or so pots crowded into their balcony alive. And sometimes, when they’re both well rested and Seonghwa doesn’t see any dark blue petals strewn about the house or stuffed in the trash, they head out. Date nights don’t have to be scheduled to be frequent. Their friends join in from time to time as well. The good thing about living in the city is that they’re close to the movie theatre and everything else, and Seonghwa likes to try all of it.

At the end of every one of their dates, Seonghwa tells Yeosang he loves him.

Yeosang never says it back.

Life outside of his love life is the same as always. Seonghwa wishes that he could talk to his parents- honestly, their largest worry in life was that Seonghwa was going to end up quiet and lonely, even with all his friends. He’s still no closer to finding out what (or who) exactly killed his family. Even with the inheritance he’s received, the connections he (or more accurately, Wooyoung) has, there seems to be no trace of a clue. All he knows is that his parents’ deaths were impossible. He’s tried to burn himself before. One of the few good things that come from the diluted Fenghuang bloodline is that they don’t burn.

Instead of digging too deep, Seonghwa visits his parents and sister’s graves. They’re together even though only his sister had a body to bury. Yeosang comes with him once; he doesn’t say anything as he stands beside him.

This is one of the many things Seonghwa appreciates about Yeosang.

A few weeks later, Seonghwa comes home to Yeosang hunched over a letter at their dining table.

“What’s that?” he asks curiously.

“Seolgi left,” Yeosang answers. For a moment Seonghwa wonders if that means Yeosang’s out of a job. Then he sees the younger cry-laughing.

“She left, and she gave me her shop to take care of,” Yeosang blurts out. “It’s- I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t have a green thumb, I’m just an idiot who decided to forget everything I learned in uni to sit around with plants and hide away from my parents!”

Now, Seonghwa thinks this is all very emotional and very untrue. He says as much, and gives the papers a quick look-through to see what exactly Yeosang’s going to be dealing with. Yeosang seems to not have noticed the tears in his own eyes, and is bemoaning the uncertainty of his future much like he does with his other existential crises.

Seonghwa then sees the flower arrangement and green magic books stacked on their kitchen floor.

“You seem like you’re prepared enough,” he remarks with a small smile.

Yeosang looks up at him with a resigned sigh.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

Despite Yeosang’s declaration, Seonghwa visits the shop one day to find Yeosang quite busy with a gaggle of teenagers. He’s transformed his usual corner of the shop into a makeshift café. Seonghwa’s pretty sure the two round tables and the chairs around them are just magically enlarged pieces from one of Seonghwa’s miniature sets. Also, Yeosang is a horrible cook- Seonghwa has no idea how he’s managing this influx of customers. Then Seonghwa takes in the magitech teapot which Seonghwa made in his final year at uni, and Yeosang’s face. That gives him some idea how Yeosang’s shop is so busy.

The next Friday, Seonghwa is the one to be promoted. The research team under him has managed a breakthrough with long distance portals. In a brief moment of insanity, Seonghwa convinces Yeosang and the rest of their friend group to take a week-long trip to France to test the portals out.

Seonghwa isn’t there when Wooyoung proposes to San during the trip, but when he comes back from an impromptu bout of stomachaches, he’s swept up in the loud, crazy celebrations the boys are having. Jongho and Hongjoong are the only ones to keep a dry expression of amusement throughout the whole affair.

Somehow Seonghwa manages to sneak Yeosang out of the raucous party at the hotel. They sit on a wide expanse of grass in the middle of Paris, tourists like themselves scattered throughout the area. It’s a weird mirror of their first date, except this time Seonghwa’s stars are foreign, and Yeosang is thinking about something. What he’s occupied with, Seonghwa doesn’t ask.

“Isn’t it a bit weird?”

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been friends with Wooyoung for a while, right? I think it would be a bit weird for me, if my highschool friend got engaged already.”

“You think it’s early, huh.”

Seonghwa just shrugs. “I mean, how do you know if you want to spend the rest of your life with someone?”

“Marriage doesn’t have to mean that,” Yeosang says distractedly.

“It’s the principle of the idea,” Seonghwa murmurs. Also, there’s the fact that Fenghuang descendants don’t often divorce, and when they do, they don’t last long afterwards.

Yeosang thinks about it. Seonghwa can see it in the way Yeosang tips his head slightly, eyes narrowed just a fraction. He hums noncommittally, and says, “Well I guess it’s just intuition.”

“Intuition?”

“You can never know for sure if someone’s the best match for you, that’s not what marriage means. If you worry about the logistics- how and when you’re going to do it, if it’s going to last or not- you’re never going to actually do what you want to do. Although, hyung, you might be better off asking someone else.”

He takes those words, and rolls it through his mind. Seonghwa has never tried to bring up marriage. To Yeosang, with his friends, family- when he was young tying himself to some stranger was incomprehensible; when his parents died, Seonghwa refused to consider it.

Yet, now that his friends are getting engaged, he cannot help but wander back towards the idea. If only because he’s morbidly curious. It’s definitely not because Seonghwa’s phone has 32 secret tabs open on Blue Nile and Catbird and Tiffany.

(You can’t do it, something treacherous says in his head. You can’t do it because you’re a coward, and even though you know who you’re bound to, you can’t admit it.)

Seonghwa sighs and rolls over to drape an arm over Yeosang. He shouldn’t be thinking about all of this, anyways. It’s not like Yeosang’s going to say yes. It’s not like Yeosang loves him.

+++++

Hongjoong calls one day, and asks if Yeosang’s there. Seonghwa passes his phone to his boyfriend, wondering why Joong would call him and not Yeo.

Five minutes later, Yeosang hangs up with a suspiciously thoughtful expression.

“What did he have to say?” Seonghwa asks.

“Hongjoong’s making a special track and he wants me to be one of the vocals,” the younger man answers simply.

Seonghwa freezes, hand hovering over the stove. “He wants you to _what_?”

“It’s not a big deal? We’ve done some singing for him before.”

Yeah, Seonghwa almost says, but never you alone. He swallows and pretends it doesn’t bother him.

“He knows about your condition, right?”

“Yeah, you know all of our friends do. I asked him if he had any solo tracks I could try out the last time we had coffee together.”

The last time Yeosang had coffee with Hongjoong was when the two couples were on a double date. That was barely a week ago. Seonghwa knows Hongjoong better than most, and he knows that there’s no way Joong just popped out a new track within that week. He must’ve had a track waiting for Yeosang’s voice beforehand, even if he never intended to ask him to participate.

And… Seonghwa has no right to stop Yeosang from doing what he likes. No matter how much he worries about him.

“Do you think I should do it?”

A dry, musing question cuts into Seonghwa’s thoughts. He blinks and turns to face Yeosang. Beyond the usual calm façade, he can see the way the younger’s eyes are slightly narrowed, the lips almost pouty in a way that reminds Seonghwa of when Yeosang’s particularly bothered by something. He’s hesitating, Seonghwa realizes.

“Why not? As long as you’re sure you can handle it…”

Yeosang nods almost instantly. It’s kinda cute, if you ignore the sinking feeling in Seonghwa’s chest.

“But be careful of how much you use your voice, okay?”

And he is careful. But regardless of how careful Yeosang is, Seonghwa soon realizes that being the voice behind a world-popular song means that you’ve got to talk about it. On shows.

Seonghwa keeps a close eye on this, of course. One day Yeosang goes on a radio show hosted by Hwanwoong- who Seonghwa has heard of through Mingi- and he asks Yeosang about the blue roses around Yeo’s neck. Seonghwa tenses when he hears it over the radio. Although things have gotten better throughout the years, Yeosang still tends to become withdrawn and melancholy when he’s reminded about his condition.

The older man freezes when Hwanwoong asks Yeosang if he likes to sing. Seonghwa knows-

“But you like singing, huh? That’s tough.”

“Yes. Yes, I guess it is.”

\- that Yeosang never talks about the things he likes. Not often, at least. The radio show ends on that note. Seonghwa barely hears the host’s final comments and Yeosang’s quiet goodbye.

When the younger man trudges back home, Seonghwa’s waiting for him. He folds him into his arms and distracts him. Whatever Seonghwa might ask Yeosang, he knows he’ll never get a good answer other than “I’m fine”. So he doesn’t ask him anything. He doesn’t really need to.

After that, Seonghwa stops telling Yeosang he loves him.

+++++

It’s a good thing he did that, Seonghwa thinks. Stop telling Yeosang he loves him. He’s lying on the floor of his cousin (twice removed, she’ll remind him) Siyeon’s living room, breathing heavily through the medical respirator she’s thrown to him.

Only once the cracked-dust-and-fire feeling dies a little in his chest does Seonghwa manage to rasp out a question.

“What the fuck is going on with me?”

Siyeon, sitting at a desk with her handheld scanner twisting between her fingers, sighs.

“I thought you weren’t going to fall in love.”

“… Please tell me why that has to do with anything.”

“Seonghwa, you’re dying.”

That- well, that he should’ve expected. He shouldn’t have passed off the chest pains as simple stress symptoms. It’s Seonghwa’s fault, mostly, from the falling-in-love issue to the not-recognizing-you’re-dying thing.

Siyeon shifts in her seat. Her face is serious and tight, but Seonghwa can see her worry in the shift of her valravn feathers behind her. The shadows stretch out for a moment before snapping back to her shoulderblades. She snaps her teeth, taps her nails on the scans on her desk.

“So, uh, what is it?” he ventures carefully.

“You’re asking me what is killing you? Do you even know _who_ you’re dying for? Do they know about this like, at all?”

Seonghwa winces. “He doesn’t.”

“And what I don’t get is who in their right mind would ever reject you!” Siyeon snarls, passing straight over Seonghwa’s words. “I mean, sure you’re a little clumsy and you get random phases, but you’re half-Fenghuang-“

“Siyeon. Me and Yeosang have been dating for four years.”

“…”

His cousin swivels around in her seat to stare at him incredulously.

“Then why the _fuck_ are you lovesick?”

There’s honestly no way Seonghwa can answer that question without involving Yeosang’s condition in this. Normally he wouldn’t do that but- Siyeon’s a doctor and quite possibly the only one Seonghwa can ask for help.

“Yeosang’s got the Angel’s Mark.”

“…”

Siyeon stares at him, as if he’s the stupidest thing in the world. And he may as well be, seeing how he fell in love with someone who cannot medically love him back.

“Hwa-“

“I know, Yeon, I know.” Seonghwa sighs. He rubs the bridge of his nose and tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest. “… How much time do I have left? Can I, cure it?”

“It’s heart-core petrification, and… technically yes. A Heart-Soul bond, and then a full treatment procedure.”

Seonghwa’s heard of it. He’d taken a magical health course in university as an elective, and the Heart-Soul bond is a rare remedy for most dangerous heart core related diseases. But-

“But the requirements…. You have nobody who fulfills them.”

A close blood relative who shares a similar-frequency heart core, or a lover willing to be soul-bonded.

Siyeon is one of his few remaining living relatives, and unlike Seonghwa, she’s a full-blooded valravn. She has no heart core to share; valravns are one of the few magical races that possess a number of substitute cores instead. Seonghwa’s own heritage may as well be why his love-sickness manifested in his heart-core; because it was already too weak.

“And even if I did have someone to cure me, my body will just fall into another illness, right?” Seonghwa asks.

Siyeon doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t need to.

After a moment, she picks up her pen again and writes down something as she speaks. “Typically, without treatment fatal core failure would happen in less than three months, especially since you’ve only now come to see me. This must’ve been happening for- a year at least. It’s a slow thing, a very gradual process.”

“I can hear a but in there.”

Siyeon’s lips twitches, breaking her grim expression for once.

“Well, you’re right about that. Modern medicine might not have a substitute cure, but you remember Yubin?”

“Gahyeon’s girlfriend?”

“My _covenmate_. She’s a dreamwitch, with Arachne ancestry.”

“She knows a cure?”

“Not a cure, but she can slow down your petrification for… let’s say around ten months. Nearly a whole extra year, just for you.”

Siyeon says it as if it’s a joke, but Seonghwa can see her smile straining. While Siyeon is Seonghwa’s closest living relative, so is Seonghwa Siyeon’s. If he dies…

He’s shaken out of his thoughts when the wolf-raven reaches out to grip his hand with surprising strength.

“I’ll give you her number. She lives on the floor below mine, so it shouldn’t be too much of an ordeal for you. You don’t have to talk to her- there’s no guarantee it’ll work and her methods take a lot of time and effort- I just want you to have a choice.”

Not like Jina, she doesn’t say. In her outstretched palm lies a neatly folded note, pieces of her scrawl poking out at the edges.

Seonghwa takes the number.

+++++

It takes him a week to scour up the courage to call Yubin. No matter how close Siyeon is with her coven, Yubin is still a frightening person. Not because she’s a mean or bad person but because she’s naturally… very intuitive.

When he does make the call, it’s Gahyeon who answers.

“I’ve heard _someone’s_ been acting like an idiot.”

“Charming as always, Gahyeon.”

“Mm. Yubin’s off getting some ingredients for her potions right now, but you can come over for dinner. Or after work, whichever you prefer.”

Seonghwa glances around the office he’s stuck in. Nobody gives him any attention, and his boss is on leave for the week.

“Actually, can I go over at five?”

He still hasn’t told Yeosang about his condition, and he has no plans to do so soon. Or at all.

Over the phone, Gahyeon puffs a little. “You’re not going to tell Yeosang, are you.”

“…”

“Whatever, I’m sure he’ll find out somehow. He’s smart. Come over at five then, the ritual takes at least three hours to complete though so be prepared.”

“Alright, anything I should bring?”

“Nope.”

When Seonghwa arrives in the evening, Yubin is waiting for him in her full potionmaster attire. She fixes him with a stern look.

“I expected you earlier.”

Seonghwa winces. “Sorry,” he says. “Was just… thinking over things.”

Yubin shrugs and lets him through.

“We’re doing this for you, anyways.”

+++++

The treatment Yubin knows of is a tedious process. It involves a good deal of magic channeling, leyline infusement, and a dream-trance sequence that ends with Seonghwa downing an entire vial of some dark blue potion. It does, however, lessen the strain Seonghwa’s constantly feeling on his core nowadays.

The vial also, apparently, has the unfortunate side effect of making Seonghwa drunk.

“I’m so sorry,” Yubin says, dusting the last of the incense from her robes. “Next time I’ll leave the galdrut out, I had no idea you were allergic.”

Seonghwa assures her it’s fine, and stumbles on a taxi home. His head is swimming, and he can’t keep his pulse under control. It’s weird. He’s never been high but maybe this is something similar.

He doesn’t exactly know what he does when Yeosang answers the door. But it can’t be good, because he wakes up at five with a bad taste in his mouth and Yeosang nowhere to be found. He panics. He runs to Wooyoung’s.

On the way there, he recalls bits and pieces of what he said to Yeosang, and he wants to be sick. Can’t risk it because of the potion, but- well. Yeosang is inarguably the most important person in his life at the moment.

He rushes past Wooyoung when the door opens, straight to where he can hear Yeosang retching in the bathroom. His boyfriend’s medication comes first before anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Seonghwa cries. “I didn’t mean to say that I swear- Sangie, you’re the sweetest, kindest person I know, you know that right? I was just tired, didn’t mean it…”

He holds Yeosang through the horrible coughing, and tries very, very hard not to think about the vines around his neck. Seonghwa fails, of course, but that’s to be expected.

There is no kind way for him to die.

+++++

San and Wooyoung end up being the first couple in their friend group who actually gets married. On the day of the ceremony, Seonghwa and Yeosang end up five minutes late to the ceremony with crooked ties and matching crooked grins. Seonghwa watches from the audience as Yeosang and Jongho sing for Wooyoung and San, and thinks-

Thinks he’s glad he’ll see at least two of his friends getting married.

+++++

His biweekly appointments with Yubin are the only time he lets down his guard. It’s impossible trying to act like his thaumate system’s not failing and that he’s perfectly fine when his friends consist of a sharply observant half-fae and a thaumate sensitive canine shifter, and four overly invested men.

One night, Yubin tells him that his petrification has progressed to a point that she can’t help with anymore. Not by much. She is gentle when she tells him, but it doesn’t lessen the reality Seonghwa is faced with.

Siyeon and the rest of her coven comfort him when he eventually does break down. He has no idea what to do- no, actually, he knows there’s nothing he can do.

He goes home later than expected, and he stares at Yeosang’s sleeping form for a full minute before going to bed.

He can deal with his impending death later, he supposes.

The next day, he leaves for an unexpected business trip. Before he leaves, Gahyeon sends him a phone number.

“It’s a healer I know in Canada,” she tells him. “When you get there, call him and see if he has any advice… Please, Seonghwa.”

He does call the healer.

It’s the last thing he remembers before he’s collapsing to the floor, gasping. He hears Mark Lee’s concerned voice from the speaker. Seonghwa barely grits out some jumbled words- he doesn’t even register what he’s saying- before he blacks out.

Seonghwa…

Does not expect to wake up again.

++++++

_What is it like to love someone?_

…

_Promise me that you’ll never love anybody who doesn’t love you back_

+++++

Seonghwa does not expect to wake up.

Yet he does.

And the first thing he sees is Yeosang, wearing an expression he’s never seen him wear before.

Yeosang… Yeosang is _crying_.

His throat closes up when he realizes what his boyfriend did- it’s not that difficult to recognize when Yeosang barely rasps out his proposal. He’ll have to be angry about it, later.

Now? Now, Seonghwa doesn’t think he’s capable of anything but smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you all for reading ^^
> 
> i'm planning on writing fics for all the couples in this universe but who knows when i'll update again hahaha


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